Follow Blog via Email

Book Review: The Bad Boys of Bokaro Jail By Chetan Mahajan

Jail is unanimously a Hell for people who live there as prisoners, as cops, or as detainees. However, this hell turns into an accident for people who land into this hell as a detainee on the basis of suspicion. Such incidents changed the lives of such people for once and all. The same happened with Chetan Mahajan. He lands in district jail of Bokaro during the winter vacations of Indian Legal system and remained there for a long while.

It is a real life story of Chetan Mahanjan, who is currently employed with HCL learning. In 2012, the author joined an IIT coaching institute Everonn, which was in financial mess. The situation deteriorates, when some teachers left the institution in midterm and parents of studying IIT aspirants asked for a fees refund. The author, who was heading the operations of Bokaro, became a detainee and sent to district Jail. Unfortunately, he reached jail during the New Year celebrations and had to wait for weeks to get him out of this hell. This is the remarkable account of author’s journey through the toughest period of his life. In this book, the writer talks about the equation between Jail Police and seasoned criminals and commoditization of under trial prisoners. He tells about the ward system, Jailonomics, and true experiences as a detainee.

The language of the book is simple and conversations between prisoners and policemen include real Hindi Jharkhandi language. There are dialogues like “Subeh ka chai file me chadhaya ja rha hai, bandi kripya apni chai le lain”.While reading the book, you will come to know that the file is called Jail mess.

My experience as an avid reader: I had multiple reasons to like this book. The first reason was my curiosity to know the treatment with under trial prisoners in district jails. The second was its nonfiction nature. And, the third and last reason was its informative writing style. This book has real information about the district jails and the mechanism to run such big complex. It has been written with soul.

50 words Verdict: Jail is a hell but how this hell looks like, runs and life in a jail tells our author Chetan Mahajan. There are dozens of books that talk over this subject but this is a true account which gives you great details about this place. So, it’s a must read.